Interesting appearance of the tea before steeping. Strangely fuzzy! I don’t know what they do to the leaves to make them become fuzzy, but they are. The multi-color of the tea (black and brown is interesting as well). Pre-steeping the tea smells of fruit with a hint of good smelling pipe tobacco.
After steeping for three minutes the tea is a nice brown/red color. I get a light pleasantly malty smell from this once steeped. Tasting this tea, it is a mild red tea with hints of bread, which is probably the malty smell coming through on my taste buds. The taste ends with something I’m having trouble identifying. Maybe this is the flavor that the label claims is carob? It is kind of the slight bitter you get from very dark chocolate, but I am not saying that I really get a chocolate taste from this, maybe one of the components from the complex taste that is good dark chocolate? I’ll have to keep drinking this to see if I can identify it further.
I am definitely learning an appreciation for the more subtle red teas and this one is a good example of this type of red tea. Not quite as good as the Yunnan gold I bought at the same time (review TBD) but good none the less and a great tea for transitioning into the lighter teas I drink in the afternoon.
